Respite
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Everything up to The Indians in the Lobby
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Leo and Ainsley spend a peaceful Thanksgiving together.
Author's Note: And ne'er was a story more aptly named…the calm before the storm…all trivia from uselessknowledge.com
This just may be the first Thanksgiving since we've been in the White House that nobody, and I mean nobody, is working. Oh, we're all on call, we can be paged if there's an emergency, and I probably will stick my head in every now and again just to make sure that the place is still standing. But everyone else is gone, or at the very least not planning on coming near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. CJ is flying back to Napa to see her family, Sam's going back to California as well; I think they may have even split a cab to the airport. Josh is going to see his mother in Florida, Toby's spending the weekend with his family, and he thinks that I don't know that he sent Ginger out last week to buy gifts for his nieces and nephews. The President, who was meant to be going to Camp David, has changed his mind because it's "boring" there - which is, as I've pointed out to him, the entire point of a Presidential retreat- and he's going to stay at the White House instead.
Me? I get to spend my four day weekend at home. And not in some hotel that I've moved into because my wife left me. Not in some apartment that my daughter helped me pick out and decorate, but that I barely live in.
I get to spend it in a real home. A place where people live, really live, not just eat every one in a while, and sleep every night. A place with family pictures on the wall, with books on the shelves, books that have been read over and over again with loving eyes. A couch that you sink into at the end of a long day, like a comforting embrace. A kitchen that has food in the cupboards and actual appetising smells coming out of it.
If Toby could hear that, he'd give me hell over the grammar, or lack thereof. If Josh could hear that, he'd give me hell over the flowery language. If CJ could hear that, she'd let out a shriek that would deafen every dog in the District, and most likely she'd need hospitalisation for a dangerous increase in her blood pressure.
I know all that and I don't care.
Because all of those things are what makes this place a home to me. And none of those things are what makes this place a home to me.
What makes it a home to me is the woman whose face is shining out from some, if not all, of those family photos. Who has spent hours reading those books. Who sinks down on the couch with me at the end of a long day. The woman who has spent huge portions of the day rattling around in the kitchen, making those smells that are so appetising, although I'm pretty sure that she's been doing her own fair share of sampling.
This woman, who loves her bed, who values her sleep, who has been known to curse a blue streak when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, voluntarily left our bed - and note please, the use of the plural possessive - with nary a word, so that she could put the turkey in the oven at a low heat. She's been planning this meal with a resolve and effort heretofore reserved for the D-Day landings, and even though I've reminded her on numerous occasions that it's only going to be the two of us, she doesn't care. "It's our first Thanksgiving together," she told me, before going to the store in search of the perfect bag of Brussels sprouts. "I want it to be perfect."
I tried not to let her see how the words "Our first Thanksgiving together" affected me, because I'm hoping that the implied meaning in her words holds true, that it's going to be the first of many. It scares me sometimes how much I want that.
I teased her this morning when she came back to bed, told her that I'd never seen her get up that early that willingly before. I expected her to come back with a quick retort, after all, she's good at that. Her response was more physical than verbal however - she reached out and reset the alarm for nine, then turned to me, with a look that can only be described as lascivious, and pointed out that since we were both awake, and had no pressing plans, that maybe I had better things to do than make fun of her.
I really do like that way that she thinks.
We fell asleep later on, and at nine, she once again smacked off the alarm quickly, out of bed before I could even open my eyes. She dressed quickly too, and was gone, off to the kitchen in a matter of minutes. I took my time waking up, showering and shaving at a leisurely pace, before going out to join the madness.
Not that I knew at the time that that's what it was. I was hoping to find some tomato juice, some coffee after that, maybe a bagel, or some cereal. Upon entering the kitchen however, I found Ainsley chopping vegetables like a woman possessed, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. I asked her if there was anything that I could do to help; she told me in no uncertain terms that she had it all under control and that I should take myself out of her way and not dare to darken her door until she called for me.
I didn't get to where I am in life by ignoring the obvious signs of danger, and thus, I decided to forgo the juice - Lord knows what I might disturb in the refrigerator - and settled for coffee and a bagel. She'd already gone outside to get the paper, and had left it on the couch in the living room she told me.
When I got there, I found that she had it already opened to the crossword for me. She never used to get the Times, but she began to order it when I began to spend more time here than I do at my own place, and she learned very quickly never to get to the crossword before I've had a crack at it. On more than one night we've found ourselves cuddled up together on this very couch, trying to work out some of the trickier clues, and I've discovered that her knowledge of useless trivia, her memory for obscure phrases and especially her knack of making leaps of logic make her an invaluable partner in crime.
I worked my way through a good portion of the crossword, munching my bagel as I worked, not moving until my coffee was almost cold, which coincidentally was the same time that my cell phone began to ring. I answered it, not without a certain sinking feeling in my heart, just in case, and while it wasn't the call to come in that I was dreading, it was the President. He wasn't calling to discuss anything of note, it was more a call to make sure that I hadn't reconsidered my decision not to join him and the First Family at the Residence. Once I spent five minutes confirming what I spent twenty convincing him of yesterday, he launched into a spiel about the history and customs of Thanksgiving. By the time that I'd learned that more than 675 million pounds of turkey are consumed at Thanksgiving annually, and that the first Thanksgiving celebration was held in 1621, I was ready to bludgeon myself to death with the phone receiver. When he came out with the fact that "Jingle Bells" was actually written for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas, by James Pierpont in 1857, and was originally called "One Horse Open Sleigh" I invented another call coming through on my cell, and told him that I really should take it.
And no, I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about lying to him.
She appeared beside me on the couch when I was in the middle of leaning back with my eyes shut, and I could hear the smile on her face when she spoke. I was still too drained after the Thanksgiving trivia to look over at her. "I take it that was the President?" she asked, and my groan might have been answer enough.
"I've known him for years Ainsley, and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of trivia that's stored in that head of his." She giggled at that, and that spurred me to open my eyes, glaring at her. "Remind me to tell you some of the fascinating things that I've learned."
She laughed again, leaning over quickly and kissing the top of my head. "How about you tell me when we're cooking?" she suggested, taking me by the hand and leading me into the kitchen.
"I thought you could handle it all on your own." I threw her own words back at her, and she didn't say a thing, just handed me a bowl filled with cream and ordered me to start whisking.
Once again, I did what I was told.
That was how we spent our day, pottering around the kitchen together, sometimes making our way back to the couch where we settled in front of the television, usually until she leaped up again to check on the food. We looked at some of the Macy's parade, and she told me about how her grandmother used to sit down on the couch with them every Thanksgiving and look at the parade with them. Thanks to the President's earlier phone call, I was able to point out that the first ever Macy's Thanksgiving parade was held in 1926, whereupon she told me to stop showing off. To make up for it, I told her about the time that Jenny and Mallory and I went to the parade in New York. Mallory was seven at the time, young enough to think that this was the greatest thing in the world, young enough to still think that her father hung the moon. And it was before I was drinking too heavily, back when I could still function without booze or pills, and I look back now and it was one of the most perfect Thanksgivings of my life.
This one is up there too.
She told me all about how her grandmother taught her how to cook the perfect Thanksgiving meal, including the secret recipe of the Hayes Family stuffing, passed down from generation to generation. I told her that we could have used that knowledge in the West Wing yesterday, although to hear Toby tell the tale, the President calling the Butterball Hotline, pretending to be a car dealer from Fargo, was a sight to see.
The room rang with her laughter when I told her all about last year at Thanksgiving, when CJ found out that she had to pick a turkey for the President to pardon, how she ended up sharing her office with Eric and Troy for a full week, all the work that she put in to choosing one of them, only to talk the President into pardoning the second turkey as well. When I told Ainsley that the President couldn't pardon a second one, but that he could, and did, draft it into military service, she laughed so hard that tears came into her eyes.
I couldn't remember the last time that I heard her laugh like that. It hasn't been an easy few months for us, what with the announcement and the issuing of the first round of subpoenas. Not that our relationship proper began in the best of times either. The first night she kissed me was the night that I told her about the President's MS. And the first night that we made love was after Mrs Landingham was killed. Ever since then, we've been stealing moments together, and at times, it's been just like it was a year ago. And at times it hasn't been.
There have been raised voices, cross words, tears shed. Our one major fight to date still causes my heart to constrict when I remember the pain in her voice, in her eyes, when I remember those tears that fell down her cheeks.
There have been the nights that I've woken up, with memories of Vietnam in my head, when my throat feels as if it's raw from smoke and screaming, and I'd kill for a drink to wash that feeling away. And then I feel her hand on my back, and I turn and see the concern in her eyes, and I wrap my arms around her, and lose myself in her instead of in alcohol.
I don't know if she knows what she's come to mean to me these past few months. I don't know if I know that myself. She told me once that she loved me; words that just slipped out when her guard was down. And I know that I care about her so, so much. I know that she's my anchor, my rock, that I couldn't have made it through this year without her. That I don't know what I'd do without her. But I haven't said those words to her yet, because I don't know if I can. I've only ever loved one woman in my life, and I hurt her, hurt her terribly. And as for my daughter, our relationship is better than it was, but it's taken us a long time to get to where we are today. I've got a habit of hurting the people closest to me, and I don't know if it's going to be different with her.
These thoughts surface every now and again, but I pushed them back today. Today isn't a time where we worry about Democrats and Republicans and hearings and controversy. It's not going to be a time where we wonder who we are and where we're going. By some unspoken declaration between us, we're not talking about any of that stuff. And instead of Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, Democrat, and Ainsley Hayes, Associate White House Counsel, Republican, we're just Leo and Ainsley.
We're just us.
Two people who are enjoying their first official holiday together as a couple.
And so we watched the parade and swapped stories about friends and family, people from work. Mallory, who is spending the holiday with Richard and his family, called me and told me all about their day so far, and made me promise not to work too hard. I think that when she didn't get through to me at my place, she just assumed that I was at the office. Which would not have been an unreasonable deduction. Once she heard that I wasn't having dinner at the White House, she tried to convince me that I should have joined her, but that's not something that I was really interested in doing, or would have been interested in, even without Ainsley in the picture. I'd be lying if I said that I was crazy about Richard, although I've never been wild about any of her boyfriends. It's the classic case of no man being good enough for my little girl, although if I had my time to do over, I think that I'd make less of an effort to sabotage her and Sam Seaborn.
Ainsley's family called her, from her sister's house in Charleston, and I busied myself by going in and out of the kitchen, checking the food, as she talked to her entire family, father, sister, niece and two nephews. I stayed out of her line of sight when she talked to the kids, because I was afraid that my expression might have betrayed me. She adores those kids, especially little Alexandra, who's the image of her favourite aunt, and there's a photo in pride of place on the mantelpiece of the two of them together that showcases the resemblance. The first time that I saw it, I imagined Ainsley with a child of her own, a child of our own, and in the instant before I dismissed it, I realised that I quite liked the sound of that. That it didn't sound as scary as it might have. And when she was on the phone with Alex, talking to her about school and dance class and how to get revenge on her brothers for something they did, that thought came back to me again, and it still didn't scare me.
When she hung up the phone, she was beaming, and talking about how she was going to have to go shopping tomorrow to start buying Christmas presents. Which surprised me somewhat, because she's got a month; I mean, how much time do you need? She replied that the kids want Harry Potter toys and that her sister has told her what to get, and she doesn't want to disappoint them. I asked her who the hell Harry Potter was, and she got this look on her face that I can't quite describe. "First, you don't know anything about Peanuts," she asked. "Now, you don't know who Harry Potter is?" When I shook my head again, she let out a noise that signified disgust, before going over to one of the shelves, selecting a hardback book with a colourful cover and handing it to me. I looked at it, then back at her, and asked her if she was serious. She was already walking away from me, back to her beloved kitchen, and the words, "Just read it," were tossed back over her shoulder to me.
By the time the Lions continued their proud record of being the only team in the NFL without a win, I was more than halfway through the book, and she had to prise it out of my hands so that I would help her set the table. And by the time that Dallas almost but not quite completed a stunning comeback - and that failed onside kick was the only other thing that made me put down the book, by the way - I was all but finished.
I was also converted, a fact that made Ainsley very happy.
Plus, I stayed out of her way until it was time to dish up the food, which thrilled her to no end.
Dinner was, after all the planning, all the worrying, all the effort, perfect. The White House Chef couldn't have done better, and we both ate until we couldn't eat any more, and even then, there were leftovers aplenty. I wondered out loud what in the world we were going to do with all this food, and then I remembered just who was sitting beside me. Plus, as she reminded me, we had a four-day weekend to get through. We'd work something out.
Looking at her, I had no doubt.
We waited for dessert, because we really couldn't eat anything else. Instead, we cleared off the tables, stacked the dishwasher with the plates and glasses, and I began washing up the pots and pans that wouldn't fit. She dried, although I told her that she should go in and take a rest, that she'd been hard at it all day. She snapped the tea-towel at me, hitting me on the upper arm, and I took my revenge by flicking soap suds at her, laughing at the surprised look on her face when some landed squarely on the tip of her nose. She might have decided to retaliate in kind, had I not taken the towel from her hands and dried my hands before wiping away the suds. Her arms slipped around my neck then and our lips met, and we forgot about washing up and dessert for a few minutes.
The water, which had been comfortably hot, was decidedly lukewarm when I finally got back to it, and we had to refill the sink, working in an easy silence. Then it was time for dessert, what Ainsley described as Gramma's pumpkin pie, the best in the world. And while I'm no great fan of pumpkin pie, this lived up to its billing, and the only hope I have is that Toby never gets a taste of it, otherwise I'd surely have competition for Ainsley. Any pie this good would surely make Toby forget any problems he may have with bipartisan dating in general and Ainsley in particular.
The day ended with the two of us lying on the couch, her resting slightly on top of me, head nestled on my chest as we finished off the Times crossword as she once again amazed me with her ability to come up with some of these words. After that, we looked at television, or at least we tried to. We had studiously avoided the news channels, trying the other channels, hoping to find a good comedy or a movie on somewhere, but without any luck. Ainsley was grumbling about the lack of choice available in holiday programming, wondering if we should cut our losses and choose a video when I told her that I had something else in mind. I would have thought that my meaning was perfectly clear, but she looked up at me curiously, and I could see recognition dawning in her eyes even as her lips drew up in a smile.
We lost all track of time as we lay there, and when the vast majority of our clothing was scattered on the living room floor, she pulled away from me, standing up, picking my shirt up off the floor; preferring it to her Carolina Panthers T-shirt. It slid easily onto her, and she didn't bother to button it up as she led me into the bedroom.
Afterwards, she sighed happily as she lay in my arms, her head over my heart, and she told me that this was the best Thanksgiving that she'd ever had, that it had been perfect. And I agreed with her. Not long after that, her breathing evened out and she was fast asleep. I could have joined her in a heartbeat, just by closing my eyes, but I didn't. Because this day has been perfect, and I hate the thought of it being over just yet. It was exactly what I wanted, exactly what we both wanted. One day, just one day where we didn't have to think about anything outside these four walls. Strange really, for both of us to have come so far in our lives, in our careers, to have accomplished so much, and yet, to want so little.
We've had a torrid time of it these past few months, and I know that it's not going to get better any time soon. In fact, with the hearings coming up, I'm pretty sure that it's going to get worse before it gets better. That's why everyone snatched the chance to take off for the weekend, because we don't know how bad it's going to get, just that it's going to be bad. That's why we all jumped at the chance to take this time, to rest, to recharge our batteries, to take a break from the reality of what's going on at work.
We knew that this day, these few days, were going to have to sustain us for a long time, and I know that, for me, for us, this day will.
That really is something to be thankful for.